“We can’t back out now!” Onimusha: Way of the Sword developer laughs off concerns around 2025’s packed September release window

Onimusha: Way of the Sword is one of many, many games due to launch in the September/October period in 2026. As developers and publishers flee as far away from GTA 6 black hole as they possibly can, the resultant squeeze in the earlier (or later) months is resulting in a veritable feast of triple-A and indie games on the horizon.

But, whilst GTA 6’s unavoidable presence may result in a wealth of choice for eager gamers this autumn, there is pressure on developers: the reason many moved away from Rockstar’s anticipated sandbox adventure is to ensure their own sales aren’t impacted, but moving into a release window where you’re competing with a plethora of other titles creates the very same squeeze – you’re just jostling with other games, instead of GTA 6.

That doesn’t seem to phase the developers behind Onimusha, though. In June, the developers announced a 25th September release date for the title, which puts it smack in the middle of one of the busiest release schedules we’ve seen in years. “We’ve already said we’re releasing it,” laughs Capcom producer, Akihito Kadowaki, when our own Chris Tapsell asked about the timing of the launch, “we can’t back out now!”

Oniumusha was actually one of the first games of this year’s blowout ‘E3 period’ to get a release date. It appeared in the Sony State of Play at the beginning of June, and set a trend for games sliding either side of the GTA 6 event horizon (anything falling after Rockstar’s launch typically fell to February 2027 or later). Over on VGC, Kadowaki expanded a little bit on how he feels about this unusually busy period.”We were pretty surprised,” he told the site. “We probably expected a lot of titles would be in that window, but we were still surprised to see just how many games were there.” The producer is not afraid of how this squeeze may impact sales, though, noting Onimusha’s unique combat, setting, and characters will all hopefully make it stand out from the pack.

A little while back, a preview build alone was enough to convince me ‘OK, yeah, I’m going to Platinum this one’: there’s something particular about action-oriented samurai games that speaks to me. “Nioh may have won my heart with its bombastic, jackhammer-like approach to its brutal combat,” I wrote last year, “but there’s something in the precision and artistry of Onimusha’s mechanics that makes me sit here, days later, yearning for more.”